Tuesday, July 24, 2007

I read today that the on line game World of Warcraft is now played by nine million people world wide. Apparently, if these players peopled a nation, it would rank as the 90th most populous country, just behind Sweden.

I've never played World of Warcraft. But I have watched others play it. I make the following observations. 1) It is extremely repetitive. 2) The graphics are mediocre, to be generous. 3) It requires only limited creativity and problem solving skills to play (what it most requires of players is time, and lots of it).

This is not actually intended to be critical. I think it's fascinating that WoW has reached this level, given what it is. What I draw from the popularity of WoW is that, simply, all of the above can be easily improved with a little effort using technology already available. In other words, we haven't seen anything yet.